Building Anatomy If you don’t know how the building was built, its materials, the degree of compartmentation, workmanship, level of fixed or passive systems and layout: then how do you expect to effectively and efficiently engage in a structural fire on the building on fire? Many times phased construction on large scale building projects allows […]

Accessed from FDNY – Remembering the “23rd Street Fire” October 17, 1966, Facebook Page On October 17th, 1966, Manhattan Dispatch recorded an alarm from a resident at 7 East 22nd Street for smoke on the 4th floor of a brownstone. Box 0598 was transmitted at 2136 hours. Engine 14, 3 & 16, Ladders 3 & […]

The Thirty-five year anniversary of the FDNY Waldbaum’s Fire and Collapse: Do you know the lessons learned?

You are integral to all that’s required on the fireground: failure is not an option.

June 17, 2001 Remembering FDNY Father’s Day Fire-June 17, 2001 The relative calm of a quiet Sunday, Father’s Day, June 17th , 2001 was broken at 14:19 hours with a phone call to the FDNY Queens Central Office reporting a fire at 12-22 Astoria Blvd, in the Astoria Section of Queens, New York. For almost […]

Recalling the Cugees Fire and Collapse of 1981

Before Making Entry, while in the street; Has someone completed or assigned reconned a 360 of the building? Have you looked at the Building and its Profile? Made a Rapid Risk Assessment? Assessed the Building’s Anatomy? Considered the Compartment? Considered the Fire Dynamics? Assessed the Predictability of Performance? Scanned for Situational Awareness? Considered the MELT? […]

Light Weight construction has given way to Engineered Structural Systems (ESS) which in today’s evolving fireground, have an even more extensive array of performance, operational and integrity issues that affect a building’s performance under fire conditions.To unequivocally state that nothing has changed in buildings, occupancies, fire flow delivery rates and demands for increased proficiencies of […]

Victim #1 was acting as the Incident Safety Officer and Victim #2 was performing overhaul, when the bell tower collapsed on them and numerous other fire fighters.

The Strand Theater Fire turned from a routine fire into one of the worst tragedies in Brockton and Massachusetts history,